(Photo: FIA WEC)
AF Corse’s Robert Kubica, who, alongside teammates Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye, pilots the #83 Ferrari 499P, will be making his first competitive appearance at the Circuit of the Americas since 2019 when the FIA World Endurance Championship contests Round Six of the eight-round 2024 season in Austin, Texas.
The last time the 39-year-old Polish driver raced at CoTA, it was in the #88 Williams-Mercedes in the 2019 US Grand Prix, a race he retired from after 31 laps with an oil leak. The 2023 LMP2 champion is looking for better luck in the #83 Ferrari hypercar for Sunday’s six-hour contest.
Recent testing has reminded Kubica of the challenges of the 5.515 km Texan circuit.
“I remember the track pretty well because we have been there testing three weeks ago,” said Kubica, speaking to the WEC. “We did two days testing, plus a Michelin test, so plenty of laps. It is a nice track but, of course, in F1 it felt a bit different to Hypercar. It is still very challenging and very bumpy. We know the organisers resurfaced most of the parts which were bumpy, I think, for our race.”
“CoTA is one of my favourite modern tracks,” he continued. “I remember in 2019 going there for the first time and we have seen modern tracks which, from a driver’s point of view, are not very exciting. CoTA, from the layout point of view, is a very nice track”
Kubica, Shwartzman and Ye currently sit 11th in the Drivers Standings in a season which has seen their best result come at the opening round in Qatar where they finished 4th.. Last time out in Brazil the trio finished 11th, two laps behind the winning #8 Toyota.
“From the performance point of view, the car in the test felt much nicer and much better than in Brazil. We were coming from a disappointing weekend in Sao Paulo and straight away in Austin, we had a better feeling.
“We must target a top five finish (at CoTA) and I think we have the potential to do this. We need to be able to extract the maximum from our package – drivers, engineers, guys on the pit stop, mechanics. To be competitive in this field, you need to have all the pieces of the puzzle working well together.”
On-track action for Lone Star Le Mans gets underway on Friday August the 30th with Free Practice 1 at 1240 local time. Qualifying and Hyperpole begins at 1500 on Saturday August the 31st with the lights going out for the six-hour race at 1300 on Sunday September the 1st.
